Correlation of bacterial community structure and soil chemical properties modelling
The changes in bacterial community structure in relation to temperature and water content were correlated with soil chemical properties using DISTLM (Table 3). Among the six measured soil parameters, nitrite showed the highest correlation (R2 = 17%, P = 0.064) to the bacterial community patterns. When the modelling was repeated using a sequential test, a combination of EC, water content, nitrate, nitrite and pH were selected as the best predictors. There was little correlation between phosphate level and the bacterial composition.